The winners -- for example, food -- somehow reminded me of Maslow's
classification of ethical behavior. Unless one's basic needs for survival
have been met, one won't tend to ponder the greatest good for humanity.
And that, in turn, reminded me of a similar exercise within ethics -- one
can ask, 'what is the greatest good?' Most would answer 'happiness' (some
would answer 'survival', but remember, I'm talking philosophy here!). And
then one asks, 'and what is necessary to achieve happiness, what should be
at the very top of one's hierarchy of values?' and several responses are
available -- freedom, doing good to others, love, pleasure, wealth,
knowledge, wisdom, attaining salvation / nirvana / whatever, living
honorably, etc. ad nauseam. The desires generated by these values, it
seems to me, might be more culturally -- memetically -- dependent than
genetically dependent.
The author of the research project defined it as measuring 'desires behind
all human behavior'. That mixes up the very bottom of Maslow's pyramid --
guaranteeing survival -- with the very top the pyramid, i.e. the discussion
of values above.
Does this make any sense?
lena
Aaron Hughes wrote:
>>>David,
>>>I concur with the list being human desires; however, only items such as
food
>>>and sex are essential to genetic perpetuation, should the list be grouped
>>>accordingly? Some members of the list are memes such as honor and sex...If
>>
>>I think every one of the 15 can be related to genetic perpetuation
>>within the context of human society (some obviously more than others).
>
> I think what Aaron was trying to point out was that most of the items
>on the list were either derivative, or derivative and redundant, and was
>in response to the author's apparent assertion that the list was
>composed of only the basic, fundamental core of drives/desires that
>ultimately motivate human behaviour. If this is the case, then I agree
>with Aaron; the author missed the mark on this one.
>
> Sure, you can include on the list items that are derivative, but where
>do you stop? You can zero in on more and more complex and specific desires
>until you have hundreds of items, but then the rule you use to include
>or exclude items from the list get more and more arbitrary. It seems to me
>that the only reasonable approach for inclusion is to pare down the list
>until you have only the most irreducible drives-desires that /directly/
>serve the goal of "living long enough to reproduce successfully".
>
> If the author's main goal in this approach was to shine some light on
>the basic functional structure of the human mind with respect to evolutionary
>psychology and sociobiology (and I have the feeling that was the case),
>then that would have been a better approach, since those results would
>more closely reflect the /motivator/ portion of the irreducible
>motivator-facilitator-memory model of the human mind that I think he may
>have had some inkling of, and which subsequently motivated him to pursue
>that direction of thought in the first place.
>
>Dan
>
-- Lena Rotenberg lrr@netkonnect.net